• Buck and Eric posing for Bob
  • Photo: BOCFanBob

Welcome to Hot Rails, a site dedicated to attempting to document every gig Blue Oyster Cult ever played as well as providing a complete gig, setlist and fan review resource archive.

Bear in mind, this site is absolutely unofficial and whereas the blueoystercult.com site is the ultimate source for all official BOC information, Hot Rails is written by fans for fans. If you've ever seen BOC live, please check out the site to make sure I have the gig listed - and any reviews/gig info you can will be gratefully received.

The site also contains separate sections on Albert Bouchard and Joe Bouchard's many musical endeavours, so any contributions for these are also very welcome.

Please note: Hot Rails now also provides a new home for John Swartz's excellent BOCFAQ, so check it out if you haven't seen it before.

me if you have any queries or something to contribute.

BOC FAQ
BOC Gig Schedule
Ticket Stubs
Find BOC on...
Support Acts
Quick Links
Guest Book
Ummm... No Lauts!!
The Giglopaedia
Can You Help?
Joe Bouchard
Albert Bouchard
Oyster Links
Blue Sky Bag
White Site/Black Site

Ugh! The site's gone all white. I HATE it!! I want my music websites to be BLACK, damn it!!

First of all, you can have it black if you want - at the top left of every page - just below the banner - are links to change the site display to black or white whenever you want.

Or click one of these:    black site  | |   white site

Reason I did it was that I was making some basic changes to the site anyway - especially modifying the structures of the Joe and Albert sections - and I've never been a fan of reading white text on a black background. It can be fine for a small amount of text - the high contrast lends dynamic impact to the subject, but for lots of text (which is what this site largely consists of), giving it this treatment makes your eyes tired if you read for more than a minute or two. That's why most blogs seem to be dark colours on light in style - so that you can read them more comfortably.

Anyway, that's why I've switched but like I said, if you disagree with my choice, you can turn it back.

Where's the BOC News?

I'm often asked: "Where's all the BOC News on this site? You didn't even mention there was going to be a reunion gig!!"

The answer's simple - this site doesn't do "news" - to find out the latest news, check out the official blueoystercult.com site or Eric Bloom's facebook page or something like that - they're in the loop and have all the latest up-to-date info.

Hot Rails is for when the event has passed and people want to comment about it...

Latest Blue Oyster Cult Stories:
HELP!!!!

Check out the "History Project" in which I attempt to give an accurate day-by-day, gig-by-gig chronology of the history of the band - starting with the SWU and then through the years right up to yesterday...

1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

If you have any information for inclusion on any year, please send it along and I'll add it to the relevant page.

And if you can, scan in your ticket stubs, newspaper ads, flyers, gig posters and to me for inclusion...

Laying out these pages is proving tough going with lots of unknowns and conflicting gig information!! As well as sending me any scans or info as mentioned above, could I ask if you could check in your attic or basement for old '70s/'80s copies of the following magazines:

Or any music magazine which carried gig listings and/or reviews...

If you do have some, please check through them for any contemporaneous BOC gig data and get in ...

Another way you could help is by jotting down a list of the known gigs played in your particular town, and then popping down to your local library to visit their archive/microfiche department.

Once ensconced in a comfortable chair, you might check out the back issues of the local paper and see if there any adverts for the show (pre-gig) or any reviews (post-gig). If there are, print them out and send me scans.

I don't ask for much, do I?

My First Blue Oyster Cult Gig
BOC at Newcastle City Hall 1975

Remember the first time you ever saw Blue Oyster Cult? You do? Then why not jot down your recollections of that wonderful day and send them along for me to include on this site.

A lot of the accounts will already be included elsewhere on Hot Rails in the form of individual gig reviews, but I thought it'd be interesting to extract just those stories that dealt with people seeing BOC for the very first time.

Click here to visit the page.